Job and financial settlement with Abigail Beniston approved

The city’s board of control approved a lawsuit settlement today with an employee who sued to keep her job.

The board agreement comes two days after city council voted to change the title of the job held by Abigail Beniston from wastewater construction engineer to wastewater construction coordinator and to reduce the job’s annual salary from $60,769.19 to $52,805.50.

The settlement includes retaining Beniston at her new reduced salary and paying $1,000 in her attorney fees in exchange for her dropping the lawsuit.

The city and Beniston reached an out-of-court agreement June 25 to stop Mayor Jamael Tito Brown from demoting her to a code-enforcement officer at an annual salary of about $39,000.

Beniston was promoted in November by then-Mayor John A. McNally. But Brown, who beat McNally for the mayoral seat last year, ordered Beniston to vacate the job May 4 and become a code-enforcement inspector, resulting in her lawsuit.

Before the promotion, Beniston was the code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent with a salary almost identical to what she will now make.